Yeah, but how much available? Windows Vista/7/8 have superfetch. Which means they do a ton of caching to make this load faster. But that RAM is sill available for apps to use (the cached data is simply dumped to make room for the active application). I doubt OSX caches so much.Reply

OSX (like Windows and like any modern OS) uses any RAM that's free as file cache because, why not --- might as well use it for something. The trick is in having the OS smart enough to throw away the RIGHT file data when it needs those pages for higher priority use.

In my experience XP was pretty lousy about this (in spite of all those fancy MS algorithms that supposedly tracked the working sets of each active app), certainly lousier than OSX.In my experience Win 7 is still not as good as OSX (but it's good enough, and a LOT better than XP), but my Win 7 experience is all based on a Parallels VM so, to be fair, there could be VM weirdness there that's making Win 7 appear to page more than it would on a native machine.

The other important data point is that Mavericks does page compression before resorting to disk paging, and it works pretty well. Apple says that, for most purposes, it makes your machine feel like it has 50% more RAM, and I have no reason to doubt that claim.

To the actual question przemo_li asked:This is the MacBook PRO line, not the MBA line. They come with CrystalWell iGPU AND GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5. I'm not sure what faster RAM you want them to use --- they come with the pretty much standard DDR3 at, I assume, 1600MHz.

I agree that the RAM bump seems strange, but I'm guessing Apple know their customers better than we do, and know that the type of people who are buying these machines (for whatever reason) ARE, for the most part, heavy RAM users. If you're not a demanding user, the Air is so much lighter. Certainly when I bought mine I bought it with 16GB, for large Mathematica sessions. Reply

I definitely think that's a VM thing, as my experience is 100% the opposite. Windows seems to precache all the right things with superfetch,and closing them out clears memory out fast enough for other apps not to chug after a big one is closed, unlike OSX. Reply

I have probably hundreds of tabs open on a machine with 4 GB of memory. Firefox has an option to not load a tab until you bring it to the front, so if you quit and restart, it will only load one tab for each window. I have many tabs active at the moment, but I have an SSD, so I probably do not notice when it swaps pages. System ram does not need to hold all of the memory "used", it just needs to hold the working set; memory which is actually being accessed, rather than just allocated. With hard drives, you would often notice when something needed to be swapped in, but with an SSD this is usually unnoticeable.Reply

First off, why even complain? They aren't raising the price. Second, if you work with video (as many Mac purchasers claim to do), 16GB would be a bare minimum for any reasonably smooth HD workflow. Doing 4K? 32GB minimum... and probably not on a MBP. Third, DDR3-1600 is likely not going to interfere with anything given that IGPs suck no matter how fast the RAM is and Iris Pro has eDRAM to compensate. 1600vs1866 trade wins or equal each other:

Just gonna throw this out there, but the memory controller for these processors only supports up to DDR3L / DDR3L-RS 1600. Are you really suggesting that an OEM like Apple should ship a rather popular line of laptops with overclocked RAM? You realize they will sell 3-4 million of these things before Broadwell arrives? The stupidity of spending even more on specially binned RAM when prices are fairly high already, plus the increased power usage and heat generation, for a gain that would be imperceptible to nonexistent for most end users, is staggering.Reply

I recently upgraded my 2010 Mac Pro from 12 GB to 48 GB and could instantly tell the difference. I wouldn't say that I was pushing my system hard but I was able to hit the page file under OS X 10.9.4.Reply

One of the main complaints people had about the base model was that it "only" had 8GB of RAM. Normally this wouldn't be a huge issue, but since it was soldered directly on the board you couldn't upgrade it later.

Now I'm not sure how many people complaining actually needed 16GB of RAM, but at least they don't need to pay extra for the higher-end model now.Reply

I wish they would make a model with a graphics card like a GT 860M. I always wondered why apple's desktops and laptops were always to anemic in the graphics department, even though they have a "best regardless of price" mindset in most other areas of their designs.Reply

Compared to PC vendors they seem good value, e.g. Dell New XPS 13 for same RAM same SSD but slower processor, 1080 screen, and lesser construction costs the same as the entry level MBP 13. So why are you "gimped" by Apple.

PS Remember you are on a site were people know what they are talking about, you are not on DailyTech. Reply

Well, you can get the 15-inch model with a GT 750M. The GT 860M draws ~50% more power, which is probably a deal-breaker in such a compact form-factor. Apple has a highest TDP given the smallest chassis mindset.

@Klug4Pres When you leave comments like that, it feels like you're either parroting some frequently reiterated sentiments or just trolling. Perhaps you could explain how platform longevity compares between products from various vendors, the underlying causes, and how this might affect the end user?Reply

I know it wasn't a very constructive statement, but I do feel quite strongly it is the case with Apple products in general. I agree, people on this site are well-informed, and therefore they will already have a lot of experience and information that will allow them to judge the matter, irrespective of one-liners from angry internet types such as myself.

Do we have the space for a full analysis of this here? No.

For what it's worth, I would say that the Macbook Pro product line is actually among the better conceived and better value products in Apple's entire history. However, in my opinion there is an unhealthy focus on "thinness" at the expense of functionality and user-upgradeability, e.g. there is no ethernet port, storage options are very limited, and it is hard to replace internal components. Furthermore, the first models suffered from performance issues, as the graphics hardware was not well-matched to the demands of the retina display. Recent models do not have an option for a matte screen.

The 13-inch models have displays that suffer from color accuracy and image retention issues, which is unfortunate considering the strong market for Apple among professional photographers and other image workers. They are also underpowered, having no quad core option.

Anyway, you know my opinion. In general, I favour open hardware and software standards, and user-serviceability, ahead of industrial design. Apple is a company that does not favour these things.Reply

Check the reviews on Notebookcheck on both the 2012 and 2013 13" rMBP. Like AT, the guys at Notebookcheck do thorough reviews including measuring the display capability.

Both the mid 2012 and late 2013 Retina models render the full sRGB gamut. The 2013 also has one of the most accurate colour reproduction out of the box: pre-calibrated Colourchecker DeltaE value of 1.87. Compare that to 8 on the QHD+ XPS15.

Image retention issue is more persistent in the larger 15" rMBP although that seems less so with the late 2013 model. The 13" rMBP , however, has had less of issue with image retention even in the 1st generation.

Here's Notebookcheck Top 25 Notebook display and both rMBP are rated not only among the best displays reviewed but the most accurate colour right out of the box:

Most of the information i've seen says that the GT 860m power consumption is on par with the GT 750m, if we're talking about the maxwell version (which i think everyone is). Maxwell 860m definitely does not draw 65+ watts, which is what it would be at if it indeed pulled down 50% more power as you claim. You also have to remember that Apple customizes the clockspeeds and thermal configurations on their machines, and the new maxwell architecture is much more efficient than the old kepler.But even still, they could have at least put in an 850m, which has a lower TDP and a good amount higher performance than the existing 750m, which is just the same as the 650m.Reply

Pretty decent refresh. There are a few configurations where I wouldn't be tempted to custom configure. It has been awhile since Apple had a default config that I didn't want to change in some way.Reply

For anyone who has lived through the PC era, it is such a goofy turn of events that the premier Intel partner in 2014 is Apple. On top of that, the premier PC product is also made by Apple. If someone wanted a quality PC solution and had $1000+ to spend, you would not send them HP, Dell, etc etc...Reply

I wonder what this means with respect to Broadwell macbooks. It could mean Broadwell versions won't be out for a year, or it could mean these latest will only be on the market for 6 months or so and then discontinued with Broadwell models, or or it could mean that they'll briefly be 2 tiers offered at the same time, one with this Haswell and one with Broadwell. Or something else.Reply

I am wondering the exact same thing: I expected the yearly major refresh of macbook pros to be end of october. Am I wrong? Do we think that there's no update now, until 2015? That definitely would change my mind about when I buy.Reply

Cmon, Maxwell is out for like six months. MBPs have been using the same GPU for almost two years now (650M and 750M are the same I think). That could have been a nice step forward until Broadwell is released.Reply

I've seen a lot comments on the extended RAM. Nobody picked up the - to my mind - rather low Flash drive capacity of 128GB in the MBPr '13 entry model. Also, paying 200$ more on an additional 128 GB (=256GB) doesn't seem reasonable to me. Providing the entry model with an 256GB Flash drive would have been a really great deal.Reply

Current MBP give up way too much for thinness for my taste. I would prefer, at a minimum, a battery which can be easily removed. It was hard enough to replace the hard drive in older MBP; I will not be buying one again. I have also been wondering if these thin form factors can actually run at full speed for extended periods without throttling and/or being too hot to actually sit on your lap. I wouldn't mind them being 50% thicker for better performance, easier access to components, and better upgrades. It is really hard to find a laptop with enthusiast features without going with a 2 inch thick clevo. I have looked at the Dell workstation laptops which offer easy accessibility, a (presumably) good screen, and 4 memory slots, but these come with expensive quadro or firepro graphics which I do not need. I have some concerns about going with a gaming laptop since most of the laptops I see in the stores have really low quality screens and seem to be of low quality build. The Toshiba with the 4k screen is presumably one of the highest quality screens you can get, but they ship it with a 2GB Radeon R9 M265X. I suppose you could game at 1080p with 4x scaling. Anyway, I have held off from buying a new system for a long time since nothing seems to have the features I want. I am leaning towards a mythlogic/clevo custom build.Reply